Integrate Square orders API with independent loyalty program

[victormmenendez]

Hey guys,

I'm developing a loyalty program mobile app for a coffee shop that uses Square's Point of Sale app. Their wish is to integrate an existing loyalty program with the customers registered in Square and assign points depending on orders made in the Point of Sale app.

For this I'd need to associate the Square users with their Loyalty program users, as I need to know the Square user id to access its orders with the Orders API. This could be done using the phone number, present in both systems, but I noticed that the documentation says that the Square Account needs to be enabled for payment processing in order to use the Customers API. They do not have payment processing active as they don't process payments with Square.

So, is it possible to associate this users in another way? Or is it possible to get a customer's orders without knowing their Square id? With the phone number or email maybe?

Also, does enabling payment processing have any repercussions for them? Does this comes with a fee or something? 

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for the help.

[nika]

Hey @victormmenendez. Thanks for your post!

I think I might be a tad confused. In your first paragraph you mention that they want to integrate a loyalty program based off of orders made in the Square POS. But then later say that they don't want credit card processing enabled with their Square POS account?

Is your customer just using Square for it's customer directory? I think if I can get on the same page with this, I'll be able to get you an answer or find someone who can better assist!

[victormmenendez]

Thanks for the reply. 

You're absolutely right, I'm confused 😂 but that's because my client is even more confused than me.

From what I have seen, they use the Square POS app to register/track orders but they do not process the actual payment with a Square credit card reader, they just register it as "paid" and that's it. They handle the actual transaction separately.

[nika]

@victormmenendez LOL! No worries. 😄

If they're not currently using Square to process payments, then I'm assuming they don't have Square Loyalty set up. In order to track their customers' loyalty points, they would have to have payment processing enabled- since our Loyalty program can only track points based off of transactions done through the POS.

So if they're not currently using Loyalty, I'm thinking they'll need to sign up and process payments through Square in order to use your API...

[pessosices]

@nika 

Maybe they're approved for CC processing, but they're just marking transactions as Cash or Other? Loyalty should still work while doing things that way